He did not have any further details nor did he say when the al-Qaida leader was arrested. According to unconfirmed reports, however, he was caught Thursday evening in the Tayran area in central Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. Mosul is currently a major battleground for U.S. forces and al-Qaida.

Al-Masri took over al-Qaida in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed June 7, 2006 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad.

U.S. officials said al-Masri joined an extremist group led by al-Qaida's No.2 official. He later joined al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in 1999 and trained as a car bombing expert before traveling to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

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